


The More Things Change (The More They Stay the Same)

by icandrawamoth



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Bodhi Rook Lives, Dark, Eadu, Everything Hurts, Gen, Grief/Mourning, HoloNet, I'm Bad At Titles, Minor Violence, Pain, Protective Baze, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, relationships falling apart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 21:54:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9404621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icandrawamoth/pseuds/icandrawamoth
Summary: Cassian takes the shot on Eadu. More than one family is torn apart.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A while back at work I was noting down all these Rogue One fic ideas. When I found the list later, I'm not really sure what I originally intended to write for "B + J reaction to C shooting G," but I'm pretty happy with how this mess of angst turned out. :)

“That's him, in the dark suit.” There's a little smile on Bodhi's face as he hands back the quadnocs, and Cassian almost shakes his head. Clearly the kid has no idea what they're doing up on this cliff.

Cassian sights through the quadnocs himself, scanning the area and finding Galen Erso among the row of scientists being presented to Krennic. With his drawn face and limp, sandy hair, it's almost comical how harmless he looks. But they all know what's in his brain – that's what matters, and how truly damning the information is.

“What are you going to do?” Bodhi asks nervously. “How are we going to get over there?”

“We're not.” Cassian fingers his blaster. He wishes he could take down Krennic, too, but he knows he's only going to get one shot before things go to hell on that landing pad, and the Director isn't the target of this mission.

All of a sudden, Bodhi seems to get it. His eyes go wide, and reaches for the captain, who jerks away. “Cassian, no! This is a rescue mission! That's Jyn's father, and my– The council said we were going to get him out!”

“I have orders from General Draven himself,” Cassian says flatly. “An extraction is too likely to fail, and we can't let the Empire keep what he knows.”

“But he helped you!” Bodhi yells against the storm. “He risked his life to send me with the message about the plans. Don't you owe it to him to try?”

“My superior officers gave me an order, and I intend to obey it.”

“You sound like an Imperial.”

Cassian can't lie; the words hit home. They rankle. But they don't change anything. “Every army needs a chain of command,” he bites out.

“Cassian-”

“Get out of here and find us a ship, Bodhi.”

“Cassian, I love him.”

The captain chokes back a scoff. He's never known anyone who loved and didn't eventually regret it. Now Bodhi is learning that the hard way. “I'm sorry,” he says, “but it makes no difference.”

“I didn't know the Rebellion was so heartless.”

The pilot's voice has started to shake, but Cassian doesn't let it move him. He's done worse things. “Go find a ship, Bodhi,” he says again. “You don't want to watch this.” He's trying to be kind.

“Cassian, you don't-”

“I said go!” Cassian explodes, and Bodhi gives a startled, defeated little wail as he finally turns and runs off, skidding and slipping on the muddy slope.

Cassian brings the blaster up and sights Erso again. He's stepped forward from the line, separated himself – good, that gives the sniper a cleaner shot. Cassian is still for a moment, lining up his target. Jyn's father. Bodhi's lover. None of it matters in the face of the greater good.

His training is there like it was born in him. Deep breath, soft pressure on the trigger.

He takes the shot.

* * *

Even with the silencer, Bodhi hears the blaster's reverberation. He stumbles and goes facedown in the mud, hard. It's a long moment before he even tries to get up, and when he does, the tears on his face are indistinguishable from the rain.

* * *

Jyn reaches the top of the ladder just in time to see the landing pad erupt into chaos. Stormtroopers and scientists are running everywhere, and suddenly in the midst of the wind and rain and panic, it's like everything goes still - and there he is. Her father, crumpled to the tarmac with a blaster hole in his head. Along with shock and revulsion, instead of grief comes anger. Jyn knows it's too late, would be pointless to to cry out or run to him. She's instantly ready to do something about it, to _hurt_. She sees Krennic's death troopers ushering their master into his shuttle and could almost follow them, take the Director down single-handedly with only teeth and nails and fists.

But it's not him she wants now. There will be a next time for Orson Krennic. She takes a last long look at her father's body and walks straight across the platform toward the waiting shuttles. No one pays her any mind, still too worried about being shot, but Jyn is secure in the cold knowledge that Cassian Andor only had one blaster bolt to spend here today.

Minutes later, she finds the shuttle her team has commandeered. The captain is leaning out the door gesticulating wildly and shouting, “Come on, hurry!”

As soon as she's close enough, Jyn unhesitatingly pulls back a fist and cracks him across the face. The advantage of surprise means the hit actually sends him to the ground, but Jyn only has a moment to be satisfied before she finds herself blinking up at the shuttle's ceiling as well, a familiar soreness in her chest and K-2SO's imposing height staring down at her. “Perhaps we can save the brawling until after we're safe in hyperspace?” he suggests all too calmly.

Cassian is cursing as he drags himself to his feet. “Sit down and shut up while I get us out of here,” he barks. The droid follows him up to the cockpit without another word.

Jyn sits up slowly, head ringing a bit, and takes in the rest of the shuttle's passengers. Bodhi is sitting in a corner, face buried in his hands as muffled sobs escape. Chirrut is a silent presence beside him, a steady hand on his arm. Baze had strategically positioned himself between the two men and the violent outburst and is now looking at her.

“What's wrong with him?” Jyn asks viciously. Bodhi's head snaps up, and she's taken aback by how fierce a glare he can manage through red eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

“You weren't the only one who loved Galen,” he bites out.

Jyn doesn't even have the strength to be surprised. She starts crying, too.

* * *

When they get back to the Rebel base, Bodhi leaves on the first transport he can. He's not sure where he's going to go, but he'll figure it out on the way. The Empire will find him the minute someone whispers his name, but he has a vague idea about finding someone who can help him change his identity.

All he knows is that he wants no part of the Rebellion that killed Galen Erso. Hearing Cassian defend his actions by saying he was following orders cut Bodhi to the quick, reminding him far too much of the Empire and the things he'd done himself. How different are the Rebels, really, when they use that same reasoning?

Bodhi had done what he promised. He delivered Galen's message, and despite the fact that the scientist was helping them, they killed him without mercy, without question. The Rebellion has no more need of Bodhi, and Bodhi has no more need of them.

* * *

Jyn is just as unforgiving of Cassian himself, refusing to speak to him unless it directly involves their mission. She even gives General Draven himself a piece of her mind, much to everyone's shock, and it's only Mon Mothma's continuing patience with her that keeps her on the team or on the base at all.

Because Jyn isn't leaving. It's not that she doesn't want to, but she understands the importance of destroying the Death Star, and these Rebels are the only ones with a chance. Perhaps that's why she hates Bodhi so much for abandoning them the first chance he got. Because he managed to get away. Or because he betrayed them. She doesn't know what she feels, but it doesn't matter. The Death Star has to go, and that's the most important thing.

She's already put in a demand, though: if the Rebel brass wants to keep her around after they secure the Death Star plans, they're going to put her on a different team or let her work alone. She doesn't want to see Cassian Andor's face any more than she absolutely has to.

* * *

Days later, hiding in some nameless village on a sparsely populated Outer Rim world, Bodhi starts to hear whispers of the destruction on Scarif. No one seems to know exactly what happened, but everyone seems to know the Rebels were there. And that not all of them escaped.

He eventually manages to find a cantina playing the Imperial holonet news. It's the closest to truth he can get amid all the rumors, which isn't saying much, but it's something. The broadcast is sparse on details of the actual event, merely stating that an attack by Rebel terrorists on an Imperial records complex had cost the lives of scores of loyal workers and the loss of a nearly untold amount of data. As the faces of the honorable Imperial dead are shown, Bodhi wonders if any of them were simple pilots like he had been not so long ago, or the like, and if the Rebellion had even considered that.

Next comes a sickeningly triumphant list of the Rebel dead, and Bodhi's hands clench white-knuckled around his drink as he forces himself to watch. The majority of the faces he doesn't recognize, and he's grateful even as he feels guilty for it. Then come the ones that hit home.

Chirrut Îmwe.

Baze Malbus.

Jyn Erso.

Bodhi scrubs at his watering eyes, not wanting to believe it but aware that if the Empire knew they were there and still alive, he would be seeing wanted holos and reward postings, not this gloating display.

Finally, the broadcast informs him, the believed ringleader of the attack, perhaps even more deserving of death than the others: one Captain Cassian Andor.

Bodhi takes a long swig of his drink, feeling hollow. He never wanted anyone to die. But when he thinks back on that conversation with Cassian on a rainy cliffside, shouting about orders and how people and mercy and promises don't matter, he remembers a man with the face of a friend and the heart of a killer.

Bodhi thinks the galaxy is better off without people like that.

 

**Author's Note:**

> And now that you're sad, I'll make you feel a bit better by telling you that I found while proofreading this fic that Jyn intially cracked Cassian across the face with a fisH rather than fisT, so there's that mental image. XD


End file.
